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Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Truth Is Stranger #57: Politician Sues God

LINCOLN, Neb. - The defendant in a state senator's lawsuit is accused of causing untold death and horror and threatening to cause more still. He can be sued in Douglas County, the legislator claims, because He's everywhere.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers sued God last week. Angered by another lawsuit he considers frivolous, Chambers says he's trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody.

Chambers says in his lawsuit that God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."

6 comments:

Unless it's a federal court, I'm guessing it will get dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

Even if our courts were found to have jurisdiction over heaven and heavenly bodies (difficult, since our government has a strict no-ambassadorial relations policy), I'm guessing your local statie will have some difficulty serving process. Should any particular clergyman (the higher ranking the better) be deemed a representative of God (again, problematic for the State considering our no-endorsement and non-recognition policies), the State could consider process served. Alternately, general notice could be served through newspapers/ radio/ TV (e.g., "Are you God? If so, you have been served!"). The general notice might be deemed sufficient, provided a compelling case is not made rejecting this approach because God, as pure spirit, does not occupy time or space. Since judges are largely unfamiliar with Aristotelian thought, it's likely that a general notice would suffice.

Without addressing the problematic task of compelling an omnipotent being to do something against his will, God's methods of appearance have thus-far been other than satisfactory for our legal system. Incarnation through virgin birth is (1) excessively time consuming for the present purposes and (2) growing ever-more difficult in our western culture (what with raw materials rapidly growing sparse). Alternately, a burning bush would not be allowed inside the courtroom because it would result in a rather serious fire code violation.